


Middle-Earth: Shadow Wars Series

by PlinkerPlonker



Category: Middle-earth: Shadow of War (Video Games)
Genre: Nemesis system, Personal Experience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:37:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlinkerPlonker/pseuds/PlinkerPlonker
Summary: Following the events of the first game, Talion and Celembrimbor realise that to beat the Dark Lord they must craft a new, pure, perfect ring to combat Sauron’s power. They will take the fight to him and conquer his fortresses taking Mordor for their own. But Celembrimbor must pour almost all of his soul into the New Ring leaving him with little humanity remaining resulting in multiple disagreements and conflicts with Talion, but nonetheless their mission remains the same, weaken Sauron and force him to reveal himself. The Dark Lord is about to face the Bright Lord and Mordor is about to begin a long and gruelling war with itself for dominion over Middle-Earth...





	Middle-Earth: Shadow Wars Series

**Author's Note:**

> After finally completing SoW for the first time the other day I decided to celebrate by documenting my experiences in my own little fan-fic/‘novel’. SoW is probs my favourite game of all time and Lotr is one of my favourite book/film franchises to date so I imagine a story based on my experience should be fun and original. So please sit back and enjoy.

After the defeat of the Black Hand, the Bright Lord has made a decision that will affect all of Middle-Earth. They are going to create a new ring to combat the One. They travelled quite a way from the Black Gate to the peak of Mt. Doom, but after all they had seen so far it was nothing to them. They marched into the volcano right up to the forge and began to make their masterpiece. Celembrimbor used the designs of the other rings to make the mould and once it was done Talion summoned Celembrimbor’s hammer and like pure instinct brought it down upon the ring sending a shockwave of light across not just Mordor, but all of Middle-Earth. They brought the hammer down again, and again, and again until their creation gleamed a bright, mesmerising blue. The final shockwave was so powerful it knocked Celembrimbor from Talion’s body. Celembrimbor called out “Talion!” As he tried to return to him but an unseen, dark force whisked the wraith away, leaving Talion vulnerable, his neck wound opened up again and he began to bleed out. He struggled with his breath, crawling toward the ring, extending his hand and index finger, and then, the ring started to move, slowly at first, and then it zoomed to Talion’s finger, re-sealing his slit throat and rejuvenating him. He rose to his feet feeling light-headed. He searched his surroundings but to no avail, his companion was no where to be found. “Celembrimbor! Where are you?” Talion shouted. “Talion, help me! Talion!” Came a ghostly voice from far away. “Come ranger, find me and you will find your Bright Lord” came a womanly voice. Talion heard the call of the spirit and started his trek to the source of the voice

Talion travelled across Gorgoroth, enduring many trials in his newly part-mortal form. He noticed that the Orcs of Mordor seemed to be getting tougher by the day, as if he were no longer fighting basic grunts anymore. Orcs were nothing more than pests to him at this point, he had mutilated and dominated hundreds of Uruks on his and Celebrimbor’s hunt for the servants of Sauron, but these weren’t regular Uruks. He’d heard stories, fables, myths, bedtime stories he used to read to Dirhael, a memory from a better time, in these stories there monsters worse than even the cruelest Uruk; they were called Uruk-Hai. The ruthless counterpart to the Uruks, these beasts seemed to be fuelled by pain, taking pride in butchering their enemies and drinking the still warm blood from their fresh corpses. In the entire span of his journey so far, Talion had only faced a few Uruk-Hai, they were all dead now but in life they tormented any living creature that had the guts to even glance in the general direction of them. Of all the Uruk-Hai he’d met, one towered above the rest, his former nemesis and a legendary foe: Sháka Ghûl Hunter. Talion shuddered at the memory, the brutality he had to inflict on the monster to keep it from returning still fresh in his mind. Sháka had ‘died’ by Talion’s hand twice, once from being severely burned by an extremely flammable grog store which he had fired a flaming arrow at to (ironically) snuff out the Orc warriors flame, the next time was more bloody. Talion has dismembered the Ghûl Hunter by first mauling him with a Caragor to take off his hand and he ‘finished’ him off by taking his entire left arm clean off with a single sword stroke. Somehow the hunter returned to face Talion and his his army as the first line of defence at Ered Glamhoth, the Tower’s fortress home. Sháka had escaped then but his stomach had been sliced open, his right eye bludgeoned till it was bloody and his face maimed with multiple slashes. Talion had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t realised that he’d finally arrived. Entering the Wraith world, Talion listened carefully for the voice and then he realised, it was the spider, Shelob. Then he heard it “Talion, come Talion”.

After sneaking his way past a few dozen Uruk guards he found an opening to Shelob’s webbed home. Searching cautiously for the Ring-Maker he drew his sword, he did not know if the spider wished to negotiate or battle but he knew he was prepared for both. Finally he saw him, constricted by dark magics, Celembrimbor was weakened without a host and they were running out of time. Slowly, lurking in the darkness the spider descended her web, assuming a more,  
pleasing form, she announced herself to Talion “Hello Ranger, I am sorry, but I will not release the Ring-Maker”  
“You cannot keep him chained up like this, let him go, or you are going to be wishing you’d never interfered with us in the first place”  
“Put down your ‘cute’ sword ranger, it shan’t be of much help here”  
“What do you want from us?”  
“I want to see Sauron suffer, and whether you listen to me or not I will have my wishes fulfilled either way. I will return Celembrimbor to you, but in exchange I require a gift, that ring will do fine”  
Talion gave Shelob a look of mistrust and uncertainty, but despite Celembrimbor’s groans of disagreement, he reluctantly took off the ring and placed it in Shelob’s hand. True to her word, Shelob released Celembrimbor and Talion fell to his knees, bleeding. The Bright Lord looked at his vessel with great disgust and disappointment, lecturing him while he lay dying.  
“You are a fool, Talion. Her power was vast before and now you have given her mine. The ring is not to tossed around, owner to owner! We are the only ones who should wield its power!” The wraith pulled the man to his feet and they morphed into one another, again becoming one. With the frustration of this major setback and the ferocious anger of a thousand fearless warriors in their hearts and minds, the duo once again pulled Urfael from its sheath and charge at the woman  
“SHELOB! RETURN MY RING TO ME!” The Bright Lord screamed as he ran toward her. With the reflexes of the ring by her side she turned and immobilised the two. Soaring above them with a look of shock and anger on her face.  
“I AM SHELOB, AND I DEAL ONLY IN TRUTHS! GO TO THE GREAT CITY OF MINAS ITHIL AND SEARCH FOR THE ANCIENT PALANTIR! THE PALANTIR WILL GRANT SIGHT OVER ALL, THUS MAKING IT A POWERFUL TOOL IN YOUR PITIFUL WAR OF THE SHADOWS!” The spider exclaimed with the ring blazing on her finger. She grabbed Talion by the shoulders, put her mouth to his ear and whispered  
“Remember ranger, sight, is your most valuable asset”. Talion gasped for air as visions of war and siege appeared in his mind. Although it was over in just an instant he knew exactly what to do.  
“We must defend Minas Ithil from Sauron’s siege, only then will the palantir be safe”. As he heard the words slip from his mouth he felt himself slipping out of consciousness, he collapsed to the ground. “Poor man-thing, you have no more idea of the fate that awaits you both”. The spider said, crawling back into the depths of her lair as she spoke.

When he awoke from his slumber, Talion found himself atop a small ledge near a forest, he studied his surroundings quickly noticing as he turned around the great Gondorian city Minas Ithil, but unlike the grand, majestic fortress that covers the border between Mordor and Middle-Earth valiantly, he saw nothing but destruction. The city was under siege from a massive Orc army nothing close to anything the likes of which Talion had ever come across.  
“Talion, we must retrieve the palantir above all else”.  
“How do we find something so small in a city as large as this?”  
“Simple, every army has its worms and luckily for us, we can break their minds and reveal all that they try so desperately to keep hidden”.  
They set about looking for potential worms, and eventually they identified the captain leading the search for the palantir. A simple looking Orc named Ukrük the Commander, a weak captain but one that needed to be dealt with quickly. They located him swiftly and scaled the buildings to reach a good vantage point. He appeared to be briefing his men.  
“All right lads, we’re searching for suttin’ called the palantir, issa round milky looking ball, itsa seeing stone and it’s very important that we deliver it safely to the bosses, keep in mind we’re working for the shriekers now, so it won’t just be a simple caning like usual, it’ll be a horrid painful death” Talion unsheathed Acharn and leaped onto Ukrük, impaling him in the space between his shoulder and his neck, making sure to hold it in so as he was thrown off the Uruk’s back the dagger would drag through causing more pain. As he prepared for a long duel, Talion heard a voice cry out from afar  
“For the glory of Gondor!” A young woman in a full set of Gondorian commander’s armour and a polished Gondorian steel sword came running into the fray and slicing off the heads of the first two orcs her blade connected with. With the attention off him, he took the opportunity and began to thin the herd mowing down three orcs before the majority of the others focused their efforts back on him and taking down another by stabbing him right through the lungs, he then parried the captain’s larger blade and struck two grunts right in the chest before turning around to meet his blade with Ukrük’s.  
“Great, not only are my men dead! But now I have to deal with two pathetic man-swines, just my luck” Talion pushed his blade off and somersaulted away to catch a quick breath before returning to help the Gondorian woman finish off the captain, Talion struck him with Acharn’s pommel and the woman stuck him through the back of the knee bringing him down to the floor where Talion pushed his blade deep into the Uruk’s throat, he pulled it out as the woman retracted her sword and he swung heavy bringing it right through from the right side to the left side of the Uruk-Hai’s neck making a crunching, sloshing sound as Ukrük’s head toppled off and rolled onto the floor as his body slumped onto its side, twisting slightly toward the front. As Talion exited his warrior’s stance and sheathed Urfael he watched the body twitch and convulse before going completely limp. The woman approached him.  
“And who might you be? You appear to be a ranger, am I correct?”  
“Yes, my name is Talion, I’ve come to help defend Minas Ithil from the siege”  
“We’ll accept every hand we can bring on board Ranger, my name is Idril”  
“Well Idril, I appreciate the assistance but you ought to be getting back to your station”  


After rescuing the remaining Gondorian captains and commanders, Talion, Idril and the others received news that the middle city was lost and had to be abandoned, they ran to make it back to the upper city gates. After being introduced to all his new comrades, Talion was informed by Celembrimbor of the Haedir, makeshift palantirs that can communicate with other Haedir as long as both Haedir were being controlled by powerful sorcerers. After purifying all of the Haedir in Minas Ithil, Celembrimbor led Talion to his barrows, great tombs that honoured the elven heroes that died in the war between Celembrimbor and Sauron in the Middle Ages. These could also be used as safe places, free from Sauron’s burning gaze. All they could do now to help was to reinforce the Gondorian soldiers going on raids, destroying supplies, duelling Uruk champions, ambushing patrols and intercepting Uruk Ordeal Trials. If he could help defeat the captains in Sauron’s army, then he could keep the fight going a little longer.

Talion knew that to beat an Uruk, you had to use their weaknesses and outsmart them, finding worms was the easy part, killing captains however, well that varied on who he was fighting.  
“There’s an ambush in preparation rather close to us Talion, if this how you men want to protect your precious city then go ahead, but don’t bring me into your affairs.”  
“This is how we beat him! Break the foundations of his army and eventually the whole lot comes crashing down.”  
“He’ll just make more, Orcs are not a finite resource Talion, for every captain we kill four more will take his place. That is why we made the ring, to dominate ALL Uruks so we have a chance of defeating him.”  
“You have changed Celembrimbor. And not for the better.”

Talion watched silently from a ledge, peering down at the captain below him, the worm had been rather useful in identifying him. It seemed that this one called himself: ‘Grom the Unyielding’. Thankfully the worm had been extra generous with intel on his flaws, he had a lack of resistance to fire and could be exploited by a poisoned grog barrel, or a campfire. Whatever worked in the  
moment. He saw the Gondorians march toward the small group of orcs, weapons drawn, ready to die for their people. Talion wished he could tell them that dying was truly not worth it, alas ‘‘twas his curse, to watch on knowing the pain of death but being unable to tell anyone lest they label him a madman.

Instinctively he drew Acharn from it’s sheath and fell onto the captain slicing flesh and bone toppling the Uruk over by letting his own weight go dead, allowing gravity to do the leg work. He told the soldiers to run and as they did Talion used Celembrimbor’s wraith abilities to poison the nearby grog barrel and send an arrow straight through it, smothering all the surrounding Uruks (including Grom) in balefire. Talion narrowly avoided the flames by shadow striking to an archer on the adjacent house.

After seeing the Orc grunts’ flesh melt to an adequate level he dropped down to finish his work. He pulled Celembrimbor’s glaive from the air and cut. He cleaved many an Uruk in two, his arms gliding around as he swung again and again, he returned it to the wraith world and drew Urfael and with a single mighty swing, sliced the bastard Orc in two straight down the middle.  
“I’d say that was a successful ambush” Talion joked gleefully in his thick Northern accent.  
“I’d say that was a successful waste of time” Celembrimbor spat sarcastically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hopefully you enjoyed that, this ain’t what I usually do but I really enjoyed writing this and I hope it gets a lot of support. Not all good fan-fiction has to involve smut ya know.


End file.
